1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus, a management method thereof, and a computer readable recording medium, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus, a management method thereof, and a computer readable recording medium, which can determine whether to approve a connection of a web server of the image forming apparatus using a MAC (Media Access Control) address of a user terminal device that has requested the connection.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus may be an apparatus that prints print data generated by a terminal device such as a computer on a recording sheet. Examples of such an image forming apparatus may be a copy machine, a printer, a facsimile, and a multifunction peripheral (MFP) in which functions of the above-described devices are combined through one device.
Recently, an image forming apparatus is provided with a web server. Accordingly, an administrator can remotely use setting changes and various supportable functions of the image forming apparatus through connection to the web server.
For the purpose of security and management, the web server supports a login function to limit a user's access and use of the image forming apparatus except for the administrator. In order to perform login, an ID and a password are required, and the administrator can change such an ID and a password during initial installation.
However, in a case where the administrator has lost the administrator ID/password to perform the login to the web server due to lack of management or a mistake, it is required to initialize the image forming apparatus for setting of the administrator ID/password. That is, in the case where the administrator has lost the administrator ID/password, it is required to initialize the image forming apparatus, to perform connection to the web server using an initialized default administrator ID/password, and then to change the default administrator ID/password. However, if the image forming apparatus is initialized, various set values which have already been used to suit the actual use environment are also initialized, and this causes the user inconvenience.
Further, when an image forming apparatus does not support a panel for performing the initialization, it is not possible to initialize the entire setting, and thus in the case where the user has lost the administrator ID/password, the user is unable to use the image forming apparatus.
Accordingly, there is a need for a separate method for solving inconvenience and problems occurring when the administrator ID/password has been lost.